1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to games, and more particularly to a three-dimensional word game apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Word games have been provided of a "crossword" nature, to be played on paper or on a two-dimensional board or surface. Crossword-type games have also been provided which employ cubes as playing pieces to spell out words in a crossword fashion on a flat surface, using only the upward-facing face of each playing piece. In each of these instances, the game is played in a flat plane and the spelling out of words involves only crossword-type, vertical or horizontal straight-line relationships between playing pieces.
Three-dimensional crossword puzzles are known (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,886,325 to Long) which utilize cubical blocks having different letters and symbols on the different faces of a given block. Complexity is derived from the fact that a given block is a part of six different crossword puzzle solutions, two in each plane. However, within each plane, the spelling out of words is still accomplished in the same vertical or horizontal crossword fashion described above.
The present invention goes beyond prior art word games in providing for the playing of letters or letter pieces, not onto a flat surface, but onto the surface of a three-dimensional closed solid. Further, the paths involved in the spelling out of words are not straight-line paths, but are circuitous and often complex paths in three dimensions about the closed surface. Relationships between playing pieces derive richness from the complex topological relationships between areas on the three-dimensional closed surface. A given letter piece may be used not just once, but twice or more, in the spelling of a word or phrase if a player has enough acumen to manage the arrangement of letter pieces to provide for a looping, continuous path between the necessary letters.
Fruitful comparison may be made to two features of the game of chess that help to make it such a richly complex game:
1. Chess is played in a limited, contained universe (a board of 64 squares).
2. Within that universe, relationships between playing pieces are very complex.
This results in almost unlimited possibilities, too great for enumeration or for learning by any one person. The possibilities for strategy are likewise practically unlimited.
In a somewhat similar fashion, the game of the present invention:
1. IS PLAYED IN A LIMITED, CONTAINED UNIVERSE (26 PLAYING POSITIONS) WHICH, IN ADDITION, CLOSES ON ITSELF AND IS EVERYWHERE CONTINUOUS WITH ITSELF (I.E., IT HAS NO EDGES AS A BOARD DOES); AND
2. PROVIDES COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PLAYING POSITIONS AND, THUS, BETWEEN PLAYING PIECES WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN PLAYED.
Additionally, the present invention is a word game (thus adding lexicological complexities and possibilities) and it is played in three dimensions. It can therefore be said that the game of the present invention introduces a new dimension and a new order of strategic possibilities heretofore unknown in the world of word games.